In the top list below, you’ll find my conclusion based on my analysis of the top futures proprietary trading firms. I’ve focused explicitly on thoroughly reviewing and testing prop firms that offer their traders the best conditions, tools, and features to successfully trade in future markets. I also analyzed the positive and negative opinions of traders across multiple sources to learn from their experiences.
Discover the best futures prop firms for your trading success.
What are Futures Prop Firms In 2024?
Futures prop firms provide a cost-efficient way to access and trade futures contracts without the need to open an account. Proprietary trading firms fund traders who successfully complete a prop firm challenge. Once funded, traders trade futures contracts. This way, traders can earn money through trades executed within the funded account. Futures trading can be a lucrative source of income when done properly.
Best Futures Prop Firms
We’ve compared prop firms specialized in futures trading based on their available account sizes, trading platforms, profit splits and company details. Here, you can compare and find the best prop trading firms for futures trading.
TopStep
Topstep was established in 2010 by Michael Patak, and its headquarters are in the United States. Topstep offers 3 funded account sizes, ranging from $50,000 to $150,000. Traders have to successfully go through a 1-step prop firm challenge in order to get funded. The available trading platforms include TopstepX, NinjaTrader, TradingView, Quantower, and more. Traders can withdraw 90%-100% of the profits made in a funded account.
Topstep’s Special Offer: 70% Off
Earn2Trade
Earn2Trade was established in 2016 by Ryan Masten, and its headquarters are in the United States. Earn2Trade offers 5 funded account sizes, ranging from $25,000 to $200,000. Traders have to successfully go through a 1-step prop firm challenge in order to get funded. The available trading platforms include R|Trader, NinjaTrader, Finamark, and more. Traders can withdraw 80% of the profits made in a funded account.
Apex Trader Funding
Apex Trader Funding was established in 2021 by Darrell Martin, and its headquarters are in the United States. Apex Trader Funding offers 7 funded account sizes, ranging from $25,000 to $300,000. Traders have to successfully go through a 1-step prop firm challenge in order to get funded. The available trading platforms are NinjaTrader and Tradovate. Traders can withdraw 90%-100% of the profits made in a funded account.
TradeDay
TradeDay was established in 2023 by James Thorpe, Tera Vicker and Steve Miley, and its headquarters are in the United States. TradeDay offers 5 funded account sizes, ranging from $10,000 to $250,000. Traders have to successfully go through a 1-step prop firm challenge in order to get funded. The available trading platforms are TradingView and NinjaTrader. Traders can withdraw 90%-100% of the profits made in a funded account.
Take Profit Trader
Take Profit Trader was established in 2021 by James Sixsmith, and its headquarters are in the United States. Take Profit Trader offers 5 funded account sizes, ranging from $25,000 to $150,000. Traders have to successfully go through a 1-step prop firm challenge in order to get funded. The available trading platform is NinjaTrader. Traders can withdraw 80%-90% of the profits made in a funded account.
UProfit
UProfit was established in 2019 by Lindsey Duff, and its headquarters are in the United States. UProfit offers 4 funded account sizes, ranging from $9,000 to $200,000. Traders have to successfully go through a 1-step prop firm challenge in order to get funded. The available trading platforms include NinjaTrader and R|Trader. Traders can withdraw 80% of the profits made in a funded account.
Elite Trader Funding
Elite Trader Funding was established in 2022 by Clint Chaney, Kanwal Singh and Eric, and its headquarters are in the United States. Elite Trader Funding offers 5 funded account sizes, ranging from $50,000 to $300,000. Traders have to successfully go through a 1-step prop firm challenge in order to get funded. The available trading platforms include NinjaTrader and TradingView. Traders can withdraw 90%-100% of the profits made in a funded account.
My Funded Futures
My Funded Futures was established in 2023 by Matthew Leech. Its headquarters are in the United States. My Funded Futures offers 3 funded account sizes, ranging from $50,000 to $150,000. Traders must successfully complete a one-step prop firm challenge to get funded. The available trading platform is NinjaTrader. Traders can withdraw 90%- 100% of the profits made in a funded account.
OneUp Trader
OneUP Trader was established in 2016. The founder is not disclosed on their website. The company has its headquarters in the United States. OneUP Trader offers 5 funded account sizes, ranging from $25,000 to $250,000. Traders have to successfully go through a 1-step prop firm challenge in order to get funded. The available trading platform is NinjaTrader. Traders can withdraw 90%-100% of the profits made in a funded account.
What Are the Main Characteristics of Top Prop Trading Firms?
Futures are the most popular tradeable financial products. That’s because futures contracts are available for a wide range of assets like equity indexes, bonds and metals. They also include various fiat currency pairs like the EURUSD, cryptocurrencies like the Bitcoin, but also various energy and agricultural products.
The original idea of trading futures contracts was to hedge the real-existing harvest of corn or the yield from cattle breeding. By using futures contracts, the hedger can secure a specific price at a specific date, independently of the price fluctuations in the market.
However, trading futures contracts also became exceptionally popular among retail traders. That’s due to the nature of how futures contracts can be traded. Due to the exceptional low margin requirements, traders can trade with enormous leverage. Some futures contracts have a tick size of $12.5 and more. And one point in market movement can consist of 4 ticks. For example, in the S&P 500 futures (/ES), That means that one point in the S&P 500 equals a 4*$12.5=$50 change in the portfolio per E-Mini contract.
If you now do the math, you’ll quickly realize the potential. On average, the S&P currently moves about 60-80 points per day, which equals about $3,000 – $4,000 value per E-Mini futures contract.
Let’s take a look at the main benefits of the futures markets:
- High grade of transparency because futures contracts are traded on one specific futures exchange
- High leverage due to low-margin requirements
- Costs are relatively low compared to the value a contract has
- Long and short trading is possible without strong restrictions
Where light is, there is also shadow, so let’s take a look at the disadvantages:
- High leverage also means higher potential risk
- Exchange fees for real-time data subscriptions can be expensive
Proprietary trading firms can help compensate for the disadvantages and add value to futures traders having a profitable trading strategy with:
- The ability to trade larger balances with a funded account compared to a traditional futures broker account
- Practice trading on real-time markets without paying for the data feed during evaluation and challenges
- Profit split agreements where traders can withdraw up to 100% of the profits made
Finding the best prop firms that provide you with the best solution in terms of funded trading accounts is easy and straightforward when using our comparison tools.
Things to Consider When Choosing a Futures Trading Firm
For proprietary trading firm rankings, you’ll need to consider the following aspects the most:
- Profit payouts on time
- High trust score based on ratings across leading platforms like Trustpilot
- A wide range of tradeable futures contracts
- A reputable prop trading platform is available
Futures Prop Trading Firms vs. Forex Prop Trading Firms
Futures prop trading firms have a clear advantage over forex prop firms due to the nature of how a futures contract works compared to trading currency pairs with a forex broker.
Let’s say you open 10 accounts with 10 different forex brokers, and you trade only one currency pair – the EUR/USD. You place the exact same orders at the exact same time. What will you experience? You’ll experience different trade executions at different price points. But why is that? That’s because different forex brokers have their own liquidity prover deals, and there is not one exchange.
With futures trading, it’s entirely different. Let’s say you have 10 futures brokers, and you execute the same order across all accounts. You’ll have pretty similar results because each futures contract is only traded on one specific futures exchange.
The main problem here is that with kind of unregulated types of order executions and the fact that there is not only one true price for an asset in the forex market, you might see some strange unfavorable trade executions.
The solution?
To prevent you from having unfavorable experiences trading FX pairs, you can trade currency pairs with a futures prop trading firm. It’s as simple as this.
One more thing to keep in mind is that all bankrupt prop firms have one thing in common: they all were in the forex market segment.
Proprietary Trading Firms – My Conclusion
In the futures trading segments, prop traders can rely on multiple reputable prop trading firms. There are many benefits for futures traders trading with a prop firm compared to opening an account with a broker. This can be such simple things as less paperwork, but also important aspects like lower capital requirements and low costs. Also, the fact that a prop firm challenge is risk-free makes a prop firm a good choice.
My clear favorite is Topstep for various reasons. Topstep is long in the business. They are known for quick payouts, they have functional trading platforms, the costs for the challenges are the lowest in the industry, and their educational content is one of the most extensive ones.